by Cole, Jagger
“Poshel na khuy!!” The bear of a Russian gurgles through a bloody mouth. He lunges at me like a drunken Frankenstein. He grabs the fucking mini-fridge off the side table next to the hotel TV and raises it up. But this time, my reaction is faster.
I kick back and jab my hand behind me. I feel my fingers curl around the gun that was knocked out of my grip in the earlier fight.
“Poshel na khuy!!” The beast of a man bellows as he raises the big metal box of overpriced booze and snacks.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” I mutter.
I yank the gun out, point it at him, and smile as I squeeze the trigger. He drops, the fridge landing on his head. I hear the click behind me, but I’m already expecting it. And besides, Yevgeny’s lost so much air to his brain from my hands on his throat, there’s no way he can even see straight.
That said, the shot he squeezes off whizzes way too close to my head for comfort.
“Will you just fucking die already?”
I roll over and point the gun at the man I was just strangling. Yevgeny’s gun is pointed four feet to my left. He squeezes the trigger again, but just the same, it’s empty now. He frowns, looking confused and dismayed. He raises his eyes to me.
“Do you have any idea who I—”
I squeeze the trigger. Yevgeny grunts and falls back against the wall, leaving a huge smear of blood as he slips to the floor.
“Yep,” I grunt. “Sure did.”
Wincing, I get to my feet. This time, I check each of the seven bodies in the suite to make sure they are in fact dead. When I’m satisfied, I allow my shoulders to slump and my head to loll back.
“What the fuck,” I groan as I close my eyes.
Okay, that did not go as planned.
In 1914, in Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in his touring car by a nobody. A complete unknown; a ghost named Gavrilo Princip. His assassination literally triggered World War I, and arguably, World War II as well.
Today, I am Gavrilo. Well, sort of. Hopefully without the apocalyptic world war. And with any luck, without the fame that Gavrilo brought on himself.
But today was about sending a message. A big one, just like Gavrilo was doing when he assassinated the visiting Archduke and his wife under the banner of Serbian independence. My message today is slightly less grand. I’m not looking to emancipate a national identity, I’m just looking to make the Volkov Bratva bleed.
I pull my phone out and send a quick text to Lev: “Green light. Call soon.”
With that checked off, I slip my phone back into my pocket. I stagger over to the Russian Frankenstein on the floor with a fridge where his head used to be. The door is already ajar and I reach in and pull out a two tiny bottles of vodka before I trudge into the bathroom.
The guy I shot mid-shit is still on the toilet. Still dead. But I pay him no mind. I pull my shirt off, wincing at the gash on my side. It’s not deep, but I should stop the bleeding. I crack open one bottle of vodka and drink it. The second I pour onto the gash, hissing as it burns.
My phone dings. I pull it out again to see a text from Lev: “Green.” It’s code, meaning he got my message. A second one comes through… this one just an emoji of a water pistol and one of an eggplant.
“Hope you didn’t shoot your dick off.”
I smirk, but I put the phone aside to grab a towel for my cut. Lev might be my boss, and second in command of the Kashenko Bratva, Chicago branch. But he’s also my brother—as in my literal, actual blood brother. We didn’t figure that out until fairly recently. But Lev’s been making up for lost time playing the big brother card.
When I manage to staunch some of the bleeding, I walk back through the room full of carnage to grab my bag. Inside, I pull out a roll of peel-and-stick bandages and seal up the gash. I throw in my bloody shirt and the gun. I pull out a clean white t-shirt to pull on. Then, I turn to survey the damage.
Christ, it wasn’t supposed to be this messy. But, the job is done. Maybe not the way I intended, but Yevgeny is dead, and that’s what matters.
Funny enough, Gavrilo’s assassination of the Archduke didn’t go as planned either. Originally, Franz and his wife were meant to be blown up with grenades during a parade. Except Gavrilo’s buddies wiffed the grenade tosses and missed. In the chaos, Franz’s car fled the scene, went way off the planned route, and then ran out of gas.
Right in front of Gavrilo. Who, like me, wasn’t one to question opportunity, no matter how it arrives. He pulled out his gun, and the rest is literally history.
This massacre was not the plan. Yevgeny Orliov was supposed to be alone with a single hooker—
I freeze. Shit.
I turn, trudge over to the closet, and fling the doors open. The poor woman screams into her hands as she tries and shove her way further into closet.
“Uspokoysya,” I say gently, putting my hands up non-threateningly. Be calm.
She trembles, staring at me in fear through layers of caked makeup.
“I’m not with them,” I grunt. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head.
“Kak tebya zovut?” What is your name?
“Champagne,” she mumbles, in heavily Russian-accented English.
“Right, well, Champagne. This is for you.” I pull out a large wad of cash and press it into her palms. Her face pales, but I shake my head.
“Not for what you think. This is for your silence. Understand?”
She nods vigorously. “Da! Da!” She pleads. “Please, don’t—”
“I’m not going to do anything. I just need you to get up, leave, and tell no one, ever, about what you saw or heard today. Do you understand me?”
She nods again vigorously, clutching the cash.
“Good.”
I step back and let her stand. She looks horrified at the scene in the suite, but she quickly bolts for the door in her towering heels.
“Champagne?”
She freezes and glances back “Da?”
“You need to find safer clients.”
She smiles weakly, and then she’s gone.
I walk back over to the mini fridge and pull out a bag of peanut M&Ms. I lift a chair up off its side, sink into it, rip open the bag, and pop a handful of candy into my mouth.
What the fuck.
Yevgeny was supposed to be alone with Champagne. Apparently, he turned a date into a party. Or maybe that’s just his thing. Maybe the dude needed a six-man audience to perform?
I shake my head and pop in another few M&Ms. Whatever the case, the Volkov Bratva avtoritet—captain—was supposed to be an easy hit.
Over the last year, the Kashenko and Volkov Bratvas have held an uneasy, fairly unofficial truce of sorts. Business is good for everyone, a rising tide lifts all ships…all that shit. Except the Volkovs got greedy. They also got sloppy.
A few months ago, Yuri Volkov lost his second-in-command, Michail Morozov. Nothing sinister, the guy just spent thirty years with a diet almost exclusively of vodka, cocaine, cheeseburgers, and hookers. I mean the heart wants what the heart wants. But at a certain point, you gotta eat a fuckin’ salad or something.
When he died, one of Yuri’s top captains, Vadik Rykov, moved up. Now, Michail and Viktor—the head of the Kashenko family here in Chicago and Lev’s best friend—had a decent back-and-forth. Vadik’s made a point of putting up walls though and getting all tribal with it.
Then, two weeks ago, one of our banking houses—i.e., a money laundering operation—got hit. It was supposed to look like a random smash and grab by some punk gang. But it wasn’t long before we realized we’d been hacked, too. The office hard drives had been hot-patched with spyware and password-logging software. Lev had it reverse hacked, and low and behold, guess who was on the other end of things, hand in the cookie jar.
My eyes swivel to Yevgeny Orliov’s body.
“Stupid, greedy fuck,” I grunt.
A year plus of a truce that made everyone rich and happy. And then this dumb fucker had to go tip t
he whole thing over. Because now, there may very well be a war. There might have to be a war. Aggression like that can’t go unanswered. It would be weak. It would invite other transgressions from other enemies.
Today was the first shot: take out the Volkov family’s top financial and technical wizard. Kick over the hornet’s nest and see what happens.
Also, aside from robbing us, Yevgeny was a true piece of shit. The guy apparently ran a revenge porn website where sad, pathetic fucks could upload nudes of ex-girlfriends for internet points. While I’ve been here assassinating the douchebag, Lev had another team fire-bomb the office holding that particular website’s servers.
When I’m done with my M&Ms and my blood sugar is back to normal, I stand. I check myself out in the mirror to make sure I don’t look like I just killed seven people. Then I pull my phone out and call Lev.
“What’d you do, take a fucking bath when you were done? Read a book?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m fine, thank you for your concern, brother.”
Lev chuckles. “I’m never concerned with you, man. Everything go okay?”
“There were seven of them.”
He sucks in a breath. “Shit, what?!”
“It’s fine, I dealt with it.”
He chuckles darkly. “And Yevgeny?”
“Toast.”
“Good. Listen, you need anything before you take off?”
The heat is about to get cranked the fuck up in Chicago after this. It’s not like Lev and Viktor are going to deny anything to the Volkovs. But if anyone takes it personally and tried to come after me, it’d be best if I was a ghost for the next few weeks. So I’m on my way up to a cabin owned by the Kashenko Bratva through a shell corporation.
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“Check in any time, brother. And enjoy that vacation.”
I grin. “I plan on it. How’s the Wi-Fi up there?”
“Non-existent. Guess you’ll have to jerk off to your own fucked up imagination.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “Stay safe, man. This was always going to stir shit up. But…”
“That was before you took out seven of them.”
“Pretty much.”
“How’s the room?”
“Oh, a horror show.”
Lev groans. “Alright, I’ll take care of it. Get going, Niko.”
“Talk to you soon, bro.”
I hang up and survey the room one last time. Then, I shoulder my bag for the next two weeks, and head out.
Downstairs in the lobby, there’s a horde of reporters. But, I’m not worried. It’s The Drake Hotel—there’s bound to be some famous politician or someone staying here that they’re after. It amuses me that I’m a ghost to them—that the real story about a septuple mob homicide upstairs is walking right past them.
I duck out a side door. My Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide Sport—my black and chrome baby—is right where I left her. I shove my bag into the saddle-pack, buckle it up, and swing a leg over. The engine purrs to life, and I grin.
And then suddenly, a fucking person is jumping on behind me.
“What the fuck!”
I whirl, ready to fight. But then I see the bare thigh. I see the skirt riding high. I feel the soft swell of tits at my back, and I smell the feminine, enticing scent of some kind of citrusy-floral perfume.
“I’ll give you twenty-thousand dollars if you drive, now!”
I blink. Hang on, what? I turn more, and this time, I can really see her. Shit. My pulse thuds like a drum. My jaw clenches, and my eyes drink in the single most beautiful, alluring, goddamn sexy face I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I pull my shades down, and her big blue eyes widen when they hold my dark ones.
“I’ll—”
“Sweetheart, I’m not Uber,” I grunt.
“Twenty-thousand!” She screams, sounding panicked. She yanks her head around to look at the side door. I can feel her body tensing behind me as she looks back to me again. “Please!”
I groan. Of all days, whatever the fuck this is, I don’t need this. Not today. Not now. Not when I need to disappear, right now. I mean all due respect to sex workers, but I give Champagne all of seven minutes before she spills what she saw to someone, maybe even directly to the cops. I need to get the fuck out of here, now.
“Look—”
A commotion drags my eyes past her. A whole horde of people are suddenly rushing around the corner of the hotel. A few of them suddenly seem to spot us and start jabbing their fingers. The crowd surges, and they start to bolt our way. I see the cameras, and the people with microphones. My jaw tenses.
What the fuck is this?
I’m about to push her off. I swear, I’m about to kick her off this bike and just go. But when I look back at her, she’s looking up at me with so much fear and anxiety in her eyes that my heart skips.
“Please!” she begs. “Please!”
I glare past her at the crowd again. Then I look at her. Goddamn it.
“You come with me, we go where I’m going.”
“Okay!”
My eyes narrow. “I mean it, sweetheart. Whatever the fuck this is, I’m not making a pitstop or—”
“That’s fine! Can we please just go!?”
My brow furrows at the panic in her voice. I look past her once more at the horde of people rushing towards us. This is a bad idea. This is a real fucking bad idea.
“Hold on tight.”
This is trouble. I don’t need trouble. But for whatever reason, I’m pretty certain I do need her.
I turn back, rev the engine, and feel her arms slip around my waist. I gun the throttle, and the bike lurches away from the hotel, into the wind, with an angel on my back.
3
Belle
Eleven Years Ago:
“Just be yourself!” Aunt Celine beams into my face, kneeling in front of me. She squeezes my shoulders and then pulls me close for a hug. “They’re gonna love you, honey.”
“What if they don’t?”
My lip quivers between my teeth. I’m nervous, and I hate that I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be, either. Aunt Celine and I have gone over these lines a million times—my insistence, not hers.
I’ve been to a lot of these open-call castings, and I’ve seen the other “stage moms.” Celine is nothing like them. At times—like the times I don’t get the part, which is every time so far—I wish she was more like them. But most of the time, I’m glad she isn’t. Most of the other kids at these things look like they’re having a horrible time. I’m at least having fun, even if this is probably our last audition.
I do this because I want to. But also, because I want to make my mom proud, even if she’s been gone for three years now. I never knew who my dad was, so when my mother passed, Celine took me in. My mom always wanted to be an actress though herself. She was, too, even though Aunt Celine says they’re the kind of movies I can’t watch.
Sometimes I push her and ask about watching them when I’m older—I’m guessing they’re scary or something. But my aunt always changes the subject.
In any case, I guess acting is in my genes. My aunt says I’m amazing, and I know she’s just saying that because she’s family and loves me. But I do think I’m at least good at it—even if I haven’t gotten any roles yet.
“If they don’t love you, they’re fucking idiots,” she grins.
My jaw drops. “Aunt Celine!” I hiss at the dirty word. She just laughs.
“Lighten up, honey! When you get to Hollywood, they’re going to use potty language all the time. Best if you look totally cool when you hear it.”
I roll my eyes.
“And if they don’t? Well? There’s always next time!”
“I don’t think there’s going to be a next time.”
She frowns. “Of course there is! Honey, there’s always another—”
“No, I mean…” I look down. “We’ve been to like a hundred of these.”
“So?”
“And I have
n’t gotten picked for anything yet.”
“What’s your point?”
I sigh and look up to see her smiling at me. “I don’t think I’m good enough for this.”
“Are you having fun?”
“Huh?”
“When you come to these things. Is it fun?”
I shrug. “It makes me nervous.”
“But when you get up there and do the lines in front of those agents and director types. Is that part fun?”
I feel my cheeks burn, and I nod. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s what matters.”
“Belle?” A middle-aged woman with a clipboard bustles into the green room. “Belle…” She frowns. “Bardot?”
“Here,” I raise my hand weekly.
The woman smiles curiously. “Is that a stage name?”
I shake my head.
“Your name is really Belle Bardot?”
“Her grandparents were French,” My aunt pipes up.
“Wow, well, that’s a great name!”
Aunt Celine elbows me in the side. “See? You’re gonna be a star.”
I roll my eyes.
“Well, Belle, you’ll be up next, so you can follow me. Mom, you can wait for her at the—”
“Aunt,” my aunt says quietly. She turns to grin at me. “But your moms watching, you better believe it.”
The woman with the clipboard smiles. “Follow me, Belle.”
“Have fun, honey,” Aunt Celine calls after me. “That’s all that matters!”
When it’s over, I can’t even remember what lines I said. I don’t remember the facial expressions of the casting directors either, which is usually a good indicator. I remember bowing and saying thank you. Then the woman with the clipboard leads me out through a side door, to my waiting aunt.
“Hey! There she is!” Aunt Celine rushes into me and scoops me into a hug. “How’d it go?!”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Good, maybe?”
“Did you do your best?”
I nod. “I think so?”
“Did you have fun?”
I bite my lip. “I… I don’t know?” I smile. “Yes.”
Aunt Celine smirks. “Well, are you done with acting? Or do you want to go home and start looking at the lines for that audition next week in Atlantic City?”
